On the 15th anniversary of 9/11, I heard one of those weekly radios show while driving in to work. On it, they had a panel a numerous professors, who uniformly blamed 9/11 on Bush, the Republicans, and the American government in general.

Of course, there was zero discussion of why the attackers (described only in the vaguest terms) had bothered to attack; it was treated as an act of nature. This went somewhat off the rails when a caller asked why the learned panel wasn't interested in discussing the attacker's motives, only the US response, and the panel pointed out that was because the reason for the attack was clear. Obviously, the 9/11 attackers were responding to Bush's unprovoked war on Afghanistan.

When the caller tried to point out that it was the other way around, the professors all became very excited, and dismissively told the caller to shut up. When the host pointed out (referencing NYT stories on the timeline) that yes, 9/11 had preceded theinvasion of Afghanistan, the panel was utterly bewildered. They were convinced that the host must be mistaken. The sainted NYT was beyond reproach, of course, but... no, that couldn't be right.

You could hear their cerebellums fusing in real time.

Although that was gratifying, it was astounding that several university professors shared the common belief that was not only completely wrong, but easily disproved, and this was in their field of supposed expertise. An 11 year old kid with access to Wikipedia and a search engine could find the timeline of 9/11, but an history department worth of political science professors couldn't.

Why? Because they didn't want to. They were all wrong, and they were al insufferably smug about it, of course. The word pathological isn't sufficient to describe that level of idiocy.

But wasn't it Merkel who said in 2010 that attempts to build a multicultural society had been "a complete failure"?

And wasn't it Merkel who in 2015, in a spectacular display of cognitive dissonance, opened the doors to millions of Muslim migrants (all illegal, by the way), whose progenitors had become the failed multicultural experiment she had excoriated five years prior?

And isn't it now also Merkel, who in her latest "pivot" is trying to stem the tide she herself had unleashed?

This is the paragon Kauffmann claims now has donned the mantle of "leader of the free world"?

Meantime Macron. Surely there is no better example of hubris and hypocrisy than this grandiloquent statement of his, quoted by Ms Kauffmann:

"Is there any other continent with such a commitment to freedom, democracy and the social balances that hold us together, to this reconciliation of justice and freedom which are at last combined.... In Europe today, sovereignty, democracy and trust are in danger".

Ms Kauffmann calls these sentiments "lyrical".

Well, perhaps. But.

The fact is is that very many concerned citizens, not of the Alt-right, believe it is the precisely the likes of Merkel and Macron who are imperilling "sovereignty, democracy and trust". They are not saving us and the Enlightenment. They are imperilling us by imperilling it.

Because it is very unlikely that importing to Europe millions of people who despise the West and its Enlightenment will contribute to its lustre.

Jesse Singal's article ("Undercover With the Alt-Right", NYT, 19 September) [Archive] is one long ploy to mock the concerns that sane and sensible and middle-of-the-road people (upwards of 70% of the EU population) have about Islamisation of Europe. To make his readers believe that if they think like that they're one small step away from becoming neo-Nazis.
See his penultimate para. You may find yourself speaking more "frankly" about Muslims with some of those shady alt-right types. Next thing you're donning a hood and lynching blacks, or Muslims, or something.
In short: beware criticism of the doctrines of Islam. It can lead to Klanism, or nazism, or both.
What a nasty and disingenuous piece of Islam-apologia from this Jesse Singal character.
Pf, etc...

Saturday, 23 September 2017

Mind you: If I were American I would have voted for Obama. Certainly in his first term and very likely in his second as well (if only because Romney is a Mormon. All religions are crazy but Mormonism crazier than most).

By the end of Obama's presidency, I would have been disappointed —especially in his foreign policy. On the fairest analysis, it was pretty much of a train wreck.

Early on I'd hated his Cairo Speech to the Muslim world. Full on mea culpa and nothing expected, let alone demanded, of the Muslim world. And for what? A big fat zero in return, from the OIC. *

Later I was shocked when Obama let the Syrian "Red Line" be crossed with no penalty. That one decision (really a non-decision) measurably added to the chaos in the Middle East.

So I'm always a bit surprised when his supporters (of which, remember, I would've been one) talk of him in hushed and awed tones with nary a peep of reflection on his foreign policy record. That record may go down as one of the very worst of any American president.

Stephen Colbert last night, for example. In his opening monologue Colbert looked into the camera — after a clip of Obama commenting on the latest efforts at "repeal and replace" Obamacare, the GOP's very own zombie policy — and said, almost with tears in his eyes, "We miss you, Sir!"

Best

P

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* The concept of "zero": one of the alleged "inventions" of the Islamic world came instead from Indian mathematicians. Of the many inaccuracies in Obama's Cairo Speech: that Islam invented the compass! We all

know that was just another of mother China's many inventions. The Cairo speech was just another example of Obama bending over (forwards!) to osculate the Muslim world's collective bum.

Friday, 22 September 2017

I'm interested in languages: Chinese, mainly. Also dabble in Italian. I've used Google Translate in Russia. And I follow jihadis and Islamists, right here on this blog.
But here's something I didn't know: the rise of "Jihadese".
Interesting article of yet something else in Islam we have to pay attention to, for our lives.

Just as well is was ISIS wot claimed "credit" for Parsons Green (screwup that it was 'n all), so then we can say for sure that the bombing had "nothing to do with Islam", because of course ISIS has "nothing to do with Islam".

Tuesday, 19 September 2017

Count the children. The bulk of "refugees" are economic migrants: youngmen, often claiming to be children, looking for jobs and jumping queues

Across the continent, poll after poll shows the European public continuously calling for migration into Europe to be slowed down. This plea is not due to some atavistic urge or distasteful racist instinct, but something that the public seems to intuit better than their politicians -- which is that if you do not have control of your borders, with a meaningful set of immigration laws and the right to keep people out of your country then you do not really have a country. [ref]

According to some reports, Europen officials do not even ask for proof if a "refugee" claims they are a child. They simply accept the statement because not to do so would impinge on their human rights.

Monday, 18 September 2017

"The Germans are free to hate Jews again."
Melanie reporters that Tuvia Tenenbom (above) discovers anti-semitism more amongst native Germans than amongst Middle Eastern refugees.
Merkel's opening the doors to millions of refugees is revealed to be a cynical virtue signalling ploy... for which Germans and refugees are paying.

Theresa May is cranky about President Trump's unhelpful tweets, but perhaps she should reserve her wrath for British politicians who have repeatedly refused to pass a counterterrorism bill May has been pushing since at least 2015. Some critics opposed elements of her approach, which focused in part on "extremist" speech and opinions by Muslim citizens. This is a legitimate concern.But it appears the reason there's been no forward motion on a policy is that some British politicians are still insisting that any discussion of terrorism that also includes a discussion of the civil war currently being waged in the Muslim community is unacceptable.Imagine someone arguing during "The Troubles" that every discussion about terrorism must avoid discussing the issue of Ireland. This is just that stupid.Melanie Phillips, who literally wrote the book on "Londonistan," says that even in the wake of repeated terror attacks from their own Muslim communities, "the intersection of an aggressive religious fanaticism with the multicultural ideology of victimhood has created a state of paralysis across British institutions."That paralysis is on display yet again, as are the horrifying images of bomb fragments and burned children.

Wednesday, 13 September 2017

Letter to South China Morning Post
Please, enough of fetishising the hijab. Your "View Point" (September 12) shows a picture of former refugee Halima Aden, who, we are told, "is breaking boundaries as the first hijab-wearing fashion model gracing Western magazine covers". So what? Are we supposed to believe it's some kind of achievement to model or to lift weights or to fence while wearing a head cover? These actions are neither brave nor transformative.
I would far rather see View Point honour the truly brave women such as Masih Alinead, an exiled Iranian journalist who founded the "My Stealthy Freedom" website which depicts Iranian women who uncover. It takes real bravery to protest against the theocratic dress code in place since the mullahs took over in 1979, under which the bareheaded are punished by caning and/or imprisonment.
One of the alleged reasons Muslim women wear the hijab is for "modesty", itself a calumny on men, who are thereby assumed to be unable to contain their passions if they see a woman's naked hair. So what is Halima Aden doing modelling on the cover of a western magazine, if the aim of being covered is modesty?
Alishba Zarmeen has called the hijab the Confederate flag of headwear. Spot on! It's a symbol of slavery, whether worn under duress, or "freely" by the likes of Halima Aden, in an updated version of the Stockholm syndrome.
Yours etc...

Tuesday, 12 September 2017

"Fatty the Third" the Chinese call him. Your average Chinese hates
the North Koreans. But what the government does or can do is a
complex issue and not as simple as the US seems to think

The question(s) on North Korea seem to boil down to the TLA (Three Letter Acronym): TSW: Talk, Sanction or War.

I had business with North Korea in the early 80s. We sold coking coal to them, and bought some fencing materials. When asked to sum up what it was like: first, trading coking coal — as a tiny Aussie company, what the Chinese called “pibao gongsi ”, literally “briefcase company” or, more felicitously, “carpetbaggers” — it was huge fun. Chartering a bulk carrier from the Greek owners, buying the coal on the Australian market with just a phone call, going up to Newcastle (the Aussie one) to see it being loaded, going to Chongjin in North Korea to see it being unloaded, having banquets with our free-drinking and women-loving North Korean hosts, it was all, as I’ve often said, “the most fun you can have standing up”. There’s also a second point: we came to understand that the North Koreans would simply lie and cheat.

Basically he comes down to a combination of Talk and Sanctions, and a lot of tightening up on both, and being clear eyed about what North Korea is all about. A strategy he summarises as “Threat Reduction”.

In broad outline, North Korean threat reduction requires progressive development of more effective defenses against the DPRK’s means of destruction while simultaneously weakening Pyongyang’s capabilities for supporting both conventional and strategic offense.

A more effective defense against the North Korean threat would consist mainly, though not entirely, of military measures. Restoring recently sacrificed U.S. capabilities would be essential. Likewise more and better missile defense: THAAD systems (and more) for South Korea and Japan, and moving forward on missile defense in earnest for the USA. It would be incumbent on South Korea to reduce its own population’s exposure to North Korean death from the skies through military modernization and civil defense.

The DPRK would be served notice that 60 years of zero-consequence rules of engagement for allied forces in the face of North Korean “provocations” on the peninsula had just come to an end. But diplomacy would count here as well: most importantly, alliance strengthening throughout Asia in general and repairing the currently frayed ROK–Japan relationship in particular. Today’s ongoing bickering between Seoul and Tokyo reeks of interwar politics at its worst; leaders who want to live in a postwar order need to rise above such petty grievances. Read all of it....

Saturday, 9 September 2017

The Saudi town of Awamiya — like so many countless cities across Iraq, Syria and Yemen that are witnessing an unleashing of the ancient hatred of Sunni for Shia — now exists in name only. Last month, days before an assault on its Shia inhabitants by the Saudi regime, the UN designated it a place of unique cultural and religious significance. But under the guise of fighting Iran-backed terror cells, the Saudis then subjected Awamiya's entire civilian population to the indiscriminate use of fighter jets, rocket-propelled grenades, snipers, heavy artillery, armoured assault vehicles and cold-blooded executions.

More than a dozen Shia, including a three-year-old boy, were killed. Hundreds of young men were rounded up. At least 500 homes were flattened, and 8,000 residents were forcibly removed from those that remained. Saudi soldiers recorded themselves dancing and singing amid the rubble of the town's once-beautiful old city. They stomped on a poster of a revered Shia cleric from the eastern province, Nimr al-Nimr, beheaded last year for sedition. And they denigrated the town's 'cleansed' local Shia as 'rejectionists' and 'dogs' — language identical to that of their fanatical Wahhabi brothers in Iraq and Syria, who rejoice in slaughtering Shia in the name of Isis. The mass beheading of 14 local Shia activists, including a severely disabled teenager, is said to be imminent.

In the wake of this sectarian carnage it seems preposterous that Donald Trump stood next to Saudi Arabia's King Salman in Riyadh in May at the launch of a new centre to combat Islamic extremism. In a keynote speech, Trump had, just as bizarrely, singled out Iran and its Shia proxies as the instigators of terrorism and sectarian bloodshed in the region. In the past, such Saudi duplicity was laughed off in the name of selling the infantile princes billions of dollars in arms (from which they take massive kickbacks) and heightening their borderline-insane obsession with the supposedly existential threat posed by Iran to Israel and the latter's despotic Sunni allies.

The joke isn't funny any more. Last month, the former head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, warned that Britain will face an Islamist terror threat for at least 30 years. Only the most blinkered observer would find it difficult to understand his concern. For with the near fall of Isis, thousands of jihadis steeped in the caliphate's Wahhabi ideology are returning to Britain and Europe, determined to keep alive the dream of massacring infidels. It is our own civilisation that faces the real existential threat. The wave of terror attacks in Spain, Finland, Britain and Belgium has happened in a year in which Europe has witnessed at least one serious jihadist incident every week.

A recent report, suppressed by the UK government, revealed the majority of funding for UK mosques that promote Islamist extremism, and which play a crucial role in radicalising homegrown jihadis, originates from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries that also embrace the odious Wahhabi ideology. These findings tally with other exhaustive studies on the expansion of Islamist extremism, both here and in Europe, which have singled out the spread of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism as the gravest threat to our security and values. All were similarly ignored by those who rule in our name.

Saudi Arabia is thus being given the green light by our treacherous political elite to ensure that, as the dream of the caliphate in the Middle East fades, murderous jihad will grow with increasing fury on our doorstep. The argument that intelligence from Saudi Arabia helps prevent attacks sounds increasingly hollow, given how many terrorist acts are being carried out regardless. The defeatist rhetoric about how jihadist atrocities are something we must learn to live with, like mudslides and hurricanes, is no less infuriating. Terror attacks are not a natural phenomenon; they are the result of circumstances fomented by politicians' decisions. If we have any hope of combating the Islamist menace, politicians must wake up, first and foremost, to the fact that mass immigration of mostly young Muslim men into a Europe where Saudi-funded Wahhabi Islam dominates mosques and madrassas is cultural suicide. Political understanding of the Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East, and how that relates to the Islamist terror threat, must likewise be re-evaluated. The atrocities in Awamiya demonstrate nothing if not the absurdity of the notion that the Wahhabis are our friends in the fight against extremism and that the Shia are our mortal enemies. By any objective measure, the exact opposite is true.

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Like Saudi Arabia, Shia-dominated Iran is a backward theocracy ruled by vicious old men who wrap themselves in the cloak of religion to limit their people's freedom and steal their country's wealth. Both countries are gross human rights abusers. There, though, the similarities end. In Saudi Arabia, non-Muslims are forbidden from practising their religion in public, while Iran's constitution protects the rights of Christians and Jews. (One of my fondest memories of the region is hanging out with the Jewish communities in Tehran and Isfahan.)

Like the Jews, and very much unlike the Wahhabis, the Shias have no interest in converting everyone else to their religion; and the Iranians even have the decency — if that is the right word — to distinguish between Israel and Jews in anti-Zionist government rhetoric. Saudi Arabia promotes the kind of anti-Semitism the Nazis would have been proud of, while damning the Shia as collectively evil. Iran has a democracy and a vibrant press that, while hardly comparable to what we take for granted in the West, puts to shame anything found in Saudi Arabia. Iran has never invaded another country; Saudi Arabia is presently destroying Yemen.

Moreover, when geopolitical pragmatism has dictated, Iran has offered to work closely with the West, while at every turn, by funding its jihadist proxies, the Saudis and their allies in the western intelligence communities have been working against us. After the September 11 attacks, carried out by mostly Saudi nationals, Iran — which of course has no sympathy for al-Qaeda — rounded up hundreds of Arab terrorists and provided intelligence to Washington to aid the war on terror. In 2009, Tehran was publicly offering to help Washington rebuild and stabilise Afghanistan; two years earlier, both countries held (ultimately unproductive) talks on Iraq.

None of that is to mention the elephant in the room. Without the heroic military sacrifices of Iran and its Shia ally, Hezbollah, on the front lines in the crumbling caliphate, Isis would not today be in its final death throes there, and al-Qaeda jihadists (whom we funded, trained and armed) would not be running for their lives. The US has also worked alongside Iranian generals in Iraq in the joint fight there against Isis. Even today, US special forces are working with the Lebanese army as it launches a simultaneous push with Hezbollah against Islamist terrorists created by Saudi and other Sunni countries that are still causing mayhem on the other side of the Syrian border.

Why do we never hear this other side of the story? One reason is that almost all the 'experts' on the region, who contribute countless op-eds to US newspapers, brief US intelligence officials and appear as pundits on TV, work for think-tanks funded by the Arab monarchies or Israel. Former British and American diplomats who were based in Riyadh and Jeddah are notorious for retiring on the Saudi gravy train. And our Foreign Office, as always taking its orders from Washington, continues to stand uncritically alongside Israel. The latter fears the mullahs in Tehran are building a nuclear arsenal to make good on its repeated promise to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

But here, again, a pragmatic reassess-ment is in order. Israel, after all, is a nuclear power, and has the best-trained and equipped army in the region. If it cannot fight its own battles now, it will never be able to. And truth be told, the only thing the mullahs really care about is maintaining their rusty grip on power. Even the Iran-hating, Israel-loving White House grudgingly accepts that Tehran is abiding by the internationally brokered nuclear treaty. The bottom line is that Iran poses absolutely no threat to us.

In fact, the only people that Isis foot soldiers are more determined to slaughter than westerners are the Shia. With that knowledge, we should be embracing the maxim that my enemy's enemy is my friend. Let us fully let the Saudis know we have had it with their terror funding by launching a ferocious crackdown on all manifestations of Wahhabism. Let us simultaneously do away with the sanctions imposed against Tehran. In this way, we can build on Iran's extensive shared intelligence and close military cooperation with the US — the most effective way of convincing the country to abandon any lingering nuclear ambitions it may have. Let Britain finally break free of Washington's disastrous Middle East military interventions and duplicitous alliances with Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabi proxies. Only by doing so can we face down the real causes of Islamist terror. We would also be in prime position to benefit from post-sanctions Iran's $600 billion foreign investment opportunities.

John R. Bradley also writes for the Daily Mail and the Jewish Chronicle and is the author of four books on the Middle East.

“When we lack the will to see things as they really are, there is nothing so mystifying as the obvious.”

Applies to apologist views on the Left of Islamism and Islamisation in the west. And to views on the Right which deny climate change. And views on both sides which deny the violence in their own bovver boys.

The other day I mentioned a New York Times article by Farhad Manjoo arguing that folks ought to lay off worrying about correct grammar and spelling ("So Trump Makes Spelling Errors. In the Twitter Age Whoo Doesn't?" ($)(Dropbox). I think I said something like this was good for a "recovering pedant" like me.Now Philip H. Devoe, in "Proper English Grammar and Spelling Are Not ‘Elitist’" challenges the Times op-ed. I must say on balance I'm more on the side of the latter than the former as I'm not fully "recovered"!One thing in the quote below: "the problem of Mandarin". That's wrong. The opposite is the case. Mandarin is the language that is now spoken all over China vs the plethora of dialects that existed before. "Mandarin" is said several ways in Mandarin, most commonly Putonghua, Guoyu or Hanyu which back-translate to "common language", "national language" or "country language". So all about being national, not dialect. I can go anywhere in China and speak Mandarin: increasingly even Hong Kong. And China most certainly teaches grammar and "spelling" (how to write characters, that is). So I'm not sure why he says "the problem with Mandarin". Anyway, article for your interest.

Ultimately, the solution to the problem of poor grammar isn't abolishing objective standards. It's restoring traditional grammar classes to schools and ensuring everyone has the ability to speak the language the correct way. This protects against the problem of Mandarin — adjacent regional dialects becoming different languages entirely...

Tuesday, 5 September 2017

It happens time and again. We islamophobes, xenophobes and racists call out some policy or other -- multiculturalism, cultural equivalence, the slaughter of Christians in the Middle East, Turkey joining the EU -- and the Left attacks us for being, well, all of the above.

Then they realise that what we've been saying all along correct after all, so they pivot. With a straight face, unblushing, they then take up the issue we've been banging on about, with nary a hint of apology.

And so with Turkey's joining the EU. We who are concerned about Islam have been warning about this for years, decades. And been called all manner of xenophobe and bigot for our efforts.

"...it is the duty of those who have accepted Islam to strive unceasingly to convert or subjugate those who have not. This obligation is without limit of time or space. It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state."

-- Bernard Lewis, renowned historian of Islam and the Middle East, in The Political Language of Islam, p72-3.

In other words:

"Islam is unique among religions of the world in having a developed doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers."